Agilent steps up move into modular test

Agilent Technologies steps up to the plate in modular test and design systems with its first modular embedded controller for AXIe systems based on the AdvancedTCA bus.

It follows Agilent’s big push into the modular test systems market last year with the introduction of 46 PXI and AXIe modules.

“This product is further proof that we are continuing to expand our modular portfolio based on the AXIe standard,” said Larry Desjardin, general manager of Agilent’s modular product operation.  

The test firm has created a business unit to target the market for PC-based test systems.

This represents a big change in what is the expanding market for more cost-effective modular test systems.  

Modular test systems incorporate a series of data acquisition, test and analysis units connected together on a high speed data bus such as PXI, AXIe and LXI.

Agilent as the leading supplier of standalone test systems has taken its time to enter the market with PC-based modular instruments.

It now recognises the importance of building test networks by allowing its bench instruments to be linked via the Ethernet-based LXI bus or USB. 

“We see standalone instruments and modular test systems as complementary, it is not a matter of one replacing the other,” Peter Kasenbacher, Agilent’s EMEA product line manager for oscilloscopes told EW.

The M9536A embedded controller is designed for use with the firm’s recently announced range of AXIe test modules such as the U4301A PCI Express Gen3 Analyzer the M9180A 12-Ga/s Arbitrary Waveform Generator and the U4154A DDR Logic Analyser.

This is a high-end controller for use in RF systems, radar and high-energy physics research.

The one-slot module controller includes an Intel Xeon L5518 quad-core processor running at 2.13GHz, 8Gbyte of RAM and a 160Gbyte solid-state drive.

Designed for AXIe 1.0 systems, the M9536A is based on a PCIe Gen2 data backplane.

There is also Intel Hyper-Threading Technology to support multi-threaded applications.

The module comes preloaded with a Microsoft Windows operating system and Agilent I/O libraries.